First $99 HD Radio announced

Despite Ibiquity choosing to name next generation terrestrial radio after the ever so popular HDTV, it hasn't been widely accepted yet. The initial cost of HD radio tuners has been a big reason and Radiosophy is hoping to change that at NAB, by introducing the first $99 HD Radio, which makes it half as much as the next cheapest model. Like most radios today, it has a few more tricks: it's an alarm clock, has an external antenna connection, as well as the latest must have for any device with speakers, a line input for your MP3 player. According to the release you have to act now to get the $99 price, as those who wait until after July 30th will have to pay $119.99.

[Grant @ Apr 13th 2007 12:33PM]

but does it have a line out besides the headphone jack?
finally getting an HD reciever and then having to listen through those small speakers?
might as well just listen to my regular stereo radio reciever, probably would sound the same half a room away.

[movies4axe @ Apr 13th 2007 3:32PM]

According to the PDF owner's manual, there is a line-out jack on the rear of the unit. The manual did *NOT* mention a Line-In for portable MP3-player connectivity.

[qube @ Apr 13th 2007 1:05PM]

Why the snooze button is not on the top is beyond me. I was going to get one since HD radio has to be better than the crappy analog service I get at home. But that snooze button as a little button on the front? Dumbbbbbb

[Jason Reich @ Apr 13th 2007 1:31PM]

I still don't quite understand why America has gone for the HD Radio standard rather than DAB like the rest of the world. Then they could benefit from the economies of scale. I think I picked up my DAB radio for £20.

Is there a difference in sound quality?

[S. Brown @ Apr 13th 2007 2:24PM]

I was wondering the same thing. Is DAB comparable with HD audio off of a Blu-Ray movie for instance?

[Jason Reich @ Apr 13th 2007 4:55PM]

Wikipedia informs me that there is a new standard to use AAC sound compression instead of MPEG2 in DAB but it would mean we'd all need new DAB radios... again. However, at the moment it can go right up to 256kbps I think.

[KENPARS0NS @ Apr 13th 2007 1:33PM]

WooHoo! Now we can listen to tampon and income tax commercials 25 minutes an hour in CD quality sound for less! And they wonder why no one addopts HD Radio when you've got commercial-free music on satellite...

Sorry NAB... Content is still king!

[sal @ Apr 13th 2007 1:34PM]

HD Radio is not about getting clearer sound. It allows you to here different things from the same fm station. Say you listen to 95.5, now you can listen to 95.51 and 95.52. Each frequency plays different things

[neverender @ Apr 13th 2007 1:48PM]

no, the dont play different things. they play music they were paid to play. and in between forcing music down your throat they run commercials. i dont see why anyone even thinks broadcast terrestrial radio is valid.

[Joshua @ Apr 13th 2007 2:07PM]

There are still stations like WFMU and college stations out there that play interesting music but they are becoming rare. They wont be on HD either so this is basically a waste of time and money. Anyone who listens to the kind of crap could get the same stuff from satellite.

[Tim @ Apr 13th 2007 1:59PM]

I don't plan on getting an HD radio anytime soon, but it seems to me the real benefit to a widescale transition to digital radio in the U.S. lies neither in increased sound quality on the FM dial (which is inferior to satellite for the audiophiles willing to pay for it) nor necessarily in multicasting (which cannibalizes the bandwidth of the main channel, and really only benefits current FM licenseholders). Rather, its potential lies in the fact that it recaptures the utility of (and remonetizes) the AM band by making it equivalent in sound quality to current FM stations.

Once a critical mass of receivers are HD-capable, the potential is enormous. FM licenses are basically all locked up and prohibitively expensive. In urban areas where the FM dial is fully saturated, you could begin to see alternative music broadcasters returning to the AM dial they abandoned in the 1960s. You could also see vastly improved sound quality for the news, country, Spanish-language and sports stations that already dominate AM. Metropolitan areas that lost their oldies and jazz stations to the dominance of Top 40 and hip-hop formats on FM could see them return, this time on the AM dial. Right now, jazz sucks on AM (oldies and big-band slightly less so, for obvious reasons) but it could be economically feasible on AM with improved quality.

What's crappy on free broadcast radio will continue to be crappy, but the expansion of the spectrum that is useful for broadcasting music can only be good news for music, even for the folks who have committed to satellite radio. Once HD radios become standard equipment in autos, everyone can squeeze a lot more blood out of the spectrum turnip.

[DaLa @ Apr 13th 2007 2:06PM]

Testicular Radio is Dead.

[anonymous @ Apr 13th 2007 2:10PM]

I will probably never get HD radio for a few reasons:
1. I listen to the radio as background music
2. I am not an audiophile
3. A radio box such as this can not really play with very much difference in sound than my current stereo receiver.
4. Satellite radio has a very finicky signal and easily unable to be maintained unless you have the radio sitting in a window which is inconvenient and even then your not guaranteed to get signal.

[shetaan819 @ Apr 13th 2007 2:14PM]

I'd say audiophiles like myself are the real potential target audience for HDRadio...and of course those of us who hate static....trouble is, we haven't been able to find any decent demos to actually show off the product. How are we supposed to be able to tell the sound difference if the demos in the stores have crappy speakers and products like this come out w/crappier speakers.....I've been trying to find a decent demo since HDRadio came out and have yet to find one....Ibiquity needs to start working with stores to make sure decent demos are out there w/high quality working speakers, why not do a partnership w/Bose or some other speaker company sold in retail stores......

[BrokenKB @ Apr 13th 2007 2:15PM]

the only stations that are remotely worth listening to are the smaller, independent ones that won't be able to switch to HD broadcasting, at least not for some time.

The only stations that actually broadcast HD are the same Clearchannel garbage that has ruined FM.

Feel free to correct me if switching the stations over is not as expensive as I remember, but IIRC it is prohibitive to everyone except the biggest broadcasters.

And then there's the fact that everyone needs to pay these liscensing fees to ibiquity. The FCC deciding on a closed standard like this shows their real agenda: take the "public" airwaves and sell them off to private business.

[Tim @ Apr 13th 2007 2:25PM]

"i dont see why anyone even thinks broadcast terrestrial radio is valid."

There are something like 12,000 radio stations in the U.S. Can we, for a moment, crawl out of our own urbanite technophile skins and appreciate that not everyone in the U.S. wants to pay for music and news to come out of a speaker or television set? And that there are communities throughout the U.S. that are bound together, to whatever pitiable extent, by listening to local radio and TV? I'm not asking you to listen to your crappy local radio stations if you don't want to, but saying that terrestrial radio is dead is pretty myopic. Okay, so terrestrial radio has lost the high-end music consumer. So what? Just because terrestrial radio is dead to you doesn't mean it's dead.

The collection of technology in my house is in the mid- to high-range, and I still flip on the radio when I'm showering and shaving in the morning. I also don't like to pick out a playlist on my iPod when I drive my 20 minute commutes in the mornings and afternoons, when NPR and a Triple-A format station are pre-programmed on my car stereo. My friends who have XM and Sirius strongly recommend them, but I don't feel the need for another monthly media bill in light of the many other music options I already have, local radio among them.

To people who love satellite radio, more power to you. I'm glad the marketplace has given you a choice that suits you at a price you're willing to pay. But I really don't understand the vitriol against radio, whatever its problems. It's like getting pissed off at the existence of an office coffeemaker just because you'd rather pay $4/day to Starbucks, and do.

[Greg @ Apr 13th 2007 2:27PM]

“Sirius, XM, and HD: Consumer interest reality check”

“While interest in satellite radio is diminishing, interest in HD shows no signs of a pulse.”

http://www.hear2.com/2007/02/sirius_xm_and_h.html

"Is Pay-for-Play HD Content on Horizon?"

http://rwonline.com/pages/s.0049/t.4028.html

"HD Radio Effort Undermined by Weak Tuners in Expensive Radios"

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/hd-radio2.html

“HD Radio on the Offense”

“But after an investigation of HD Radio units, the stations playing HD, and the company that owns the technology; and some interviews with the wonks in DC, it looks like HD Radio is a high-level corporate scam, a huge carny shill.”

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-03-07/music/hd-radio-on-the-offense

Poor reception is common amoung all HD radios, thus this read also requires external jacks for AM loop and FM dipole antennas. The price of HD radios will never approach that of analog radios, because of licensing fees to iBiquity and the cost of the DSP processors.

[garvinr @ Apr 13th 2007 3:14PM]

Imus killed terrestrial radio!!!!!!

[jeffc82sm @ Apr 13th 2007 3:22PM]

Anyone know of a good brand/model portable AM/FM radio....AM reception being most important..

[Grant @ Apr 13th 2007 4:46PM]

nice work reading the manual, movies4axe, i'm too lazy. lol
thats good, at least it will be a pretty good deal if the quality is any good.
i personally don't see the point of a "boombox" style unit these days, considering pretty much every either has a stand-alone speaker set for their DAP of choice, or a nice stereo with line-ins on it.
someone needs to just create a simple shelf unit with a line out to a home reciever, is that idea so crazy?

[Bob Corzine @ Apr 13th 2007 3:39PM]

I'd buy one if it included a CD player.

[philipbarrett @ Apr 13th 2007 7:59PM]

Improved audio quality...HD Radio....yeah...sure....

Right after we run the signal from our 128Kb media server & through our Opti-Mods yep, it'll be high quality.

Digital terrestrial, satellite, whatever, they're not interested in audio quality, only the ability to stream ever more compressed channels down the same pipe for the same cost.

Why should they care, the average Joe thinks that a Bose Lifestyle System (set in simulated surround mode) is the ultimate tits in home audio anyway.

[shetaan819 @ Apr 13th 2007 9:58PM]

I'd say audiophiles like myself are the real potential target audience for HDRadio...and of course those of us who hate static....trouble is, we haven't been able to find any decent demos to actually show off the product. How are we supposed to be able to tell the sound difference if the demos in the stores have crappy speakers and products like this come out w/crappier speakers.....I've been trying to find a decent demo since HDRadio came out and have yet to find one....Ibiquity needs to start working with stores to make sure decent demos are out there w/high quality working speakers, why not do a partnership w/Bose or some other speaker company sold in retail stores......

[Geoffrey @ Apr 14th 2007 9:29AM]

I want to point out that a lot of NPR stations are broadcasting in HD now, not just Clear Channel and the like.

Having said that, and as someone who listens to a lot fo radio programs, I still haven't seen a compelling reason to get a digital radio at this stage. With the ability to stream over Internet and the use of podcasts, it just isn't worthwhile yet.

[Aaron Barnhart @ May 3rd 2007 12:36PM]

Meanwhile, some dude who decided to pull in HDTV to his rural Missouri home using an antenna has started up a semi-booming antenna business.

Seems like people who are tired of paying for media will be a growth market for years to come.